LAST month, Rohan Wray and Chana Al-Alas walked free from the Old Bailey court in London after being cleared of killing their 4-month-old son Jayden in 2009. The injuries to his skull, knee, elbow, shoulder, hip, ankle and wrist – and haemorrhages in his skull and eyes – had seemed to suggest that the pair was responsible for their baby’s death.

Post-mortems revealed a different story. Jayden had rickets, a Dickensian disease caused by a shortage of vitamin D, making his bones abnormally weak and vulnerable to damage.

Further investigations showed that Jayden’s mother was also suffering from a lack of vitamin D. She had been unable to supply Jayden with enough of the vitamin, either before his birth or afterwards in her breast milk.

The case has highlighted a resurgence in rich countries of the potentially fatal diseases that result from a lack of vitamin D (see “Rickets is just the start”). Irene Scheimberg, the clinical pathologist at the Royal London Hospital who discovered Jayden’s rickets, says …….